The New York Giants almost made the playoffs in 2020. Unfortunately, that says more about the NFC East than anything else. If the Eagles defeated Washington, then the Giants’ week seventeen win would have secured them a home playoff game. Instead, they pick eleventh in the upcoming NFL Draft. That gives you the perfect encapsulation of how bad the NFC East ended up. What can we remember from the 2020 New York Giants for our 2021 fantasy football drafts?
What to Remember from the 2020 New York Giants Season
- Evan Engram ranked fourth in 2020 tight end targets, but it didn’t feel like it. He finished the year with just 654 yards (#8 among tight ends) and one score. That one score was the main problem with Engram’s 2020, where he ranked as the #16 TE. Had he scored at his career rate (4.8% of his targets as touchdowns), he would have scored five touchdowns. Had he scored those five touchdowns, he would have ended up with 133.5 fantasy points just ahead of TE7 (Mike Gesicki, 132.8 fantasy points/0. If Engram falls outside the top-ten at tight end next year, tag him in every draft. The Giants bottomed out and he still produced… outside of touchdowns. He had just three ten zone targets, which he turned into zero touchdowns. In 2018 and 2019 combined, he had eight targets that turned into four touchdowns.
- Saquon Barkley missed fourteen games, and all but eight snaps of his fifteenth game when he tore his ACL in week two against Chicago. He doesn’t pop on per-game statistics like Christian McCaffrey, probably because he ended the year with 19 carries for 34 yards. But, he played his only full game against the Steelers in week one, who allowed just the third-fewest fantasy points to running backs this season. Barkley also kicked in six receptions for 60 yards on top of his dismal fifteen carry, six-yard game, giving him 9.6 fantasy points in half-PPR. Only twelve running backs passed 9 fantasy points against the Steelers this season, one of the lowest figures in football. The Texans, for example, allowed twelve running backs at least 9 HPPR points in just their last five games.
- The Giants tried a handful of running backs to replace Saquon Barkley. Remember, they pulled Devonta Freeman off of the scrap heap? Ultimately, the responsibility became Wayne Gallman’s. Gallman played hot, turning in six-straight games with at least a touchdown or 100 yards, on 17.5 touches per game. He paced out to 1,277 yards and 16 touchdowns. Unfortunately, the bottom fell out on Gallman rather quickly. In his last four games, he ended up getting just 10.8 touches per game, scoring zero times and averaging 56 yards per game. It seems as though Wayne Gallman hit a wall, and the Giants stopped feeding him… simultaneously. Barring any unforeseen issues with Saquon Barkley, it’s unlikely we care about Gallman in 2021.
- The New York Giants did not have a single wide receiver inside the top-50 at the position overall, and the top WR on the team—Sterling Shepard—ranked as WR38 on a per-game basis. The Giants, overall, had just 22.8 points per game to divide up among Sterling Shepard, Darius Slayton, and Golden Tate on the season. That’s nearly half of the #1 team, the Buffalo Bills. It was a game of whack-a-mole trying to pick the correct wide receiver each week. Four different wide receivers led the Giants in fantasy points in a given week, but if you chose the correct one, you profited. The top wide receiver each week for the Giants averaged 12.3 fantasy points per game, which would have been WR7 on the season.
- On a per-game basis, Daniel Jones ended up as the QB33 on the season. Only 32 quarterbacks start in a given week, so that’s #notgood for Danny Dimes. There wasn’t much worth noting for Jones this season, who ended the year with just eleven passing touchdowns and ten interceptions in fourteen games on the year. Had Daniel Jones not fallen down on his long, long touchdown run, it would have gone for 88 yards and a touchdown. Those 14.8 fantasy points alone would have been his eighth-best week of the year.
If this has you hankerin’ for some fantasy sports, try out Fan Duel! That link lets them know we sent you! It also gets you a 20% deposit match up to $500!
Then, follow Football Absurdity on Twitter!
After that, get free fantasy football advice by joining our Discord!
Finally, if you like what you read here, check out our podcast and our Patreon
